Friday, August 22, 2014

Among the demands of the “protesters” in Ferguson is that the investigation and prosecution of police officer Darren Wilson be taken away from St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch.

McCulloch is biased, it is said. How so? In 1964, his father, a St. Louis police officer, was shot to death by an African-American.

Moreover, McCulloch comes from a family of cops. He wanted to be a police officer himself, but when cancer cost him a leg as a kid, he became a prosecutor.

Yet, in 23 years, McCulloch has convicted many cops of many crimes, and has said that if Gov. Jay Nixon orders him off this case, he will comply. Meanwhile, he is moving ahead with the grand jury.

As for Gov. Nixon, he revealed his closed mind by demanding the “vigorous prosecution” of a cop who has not even been charged and by calling repeatedly for “justice for [Brown's] family” but not Wilson’s.

Thursday on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor," Fox News strategic analyst Lt. Col. Ralph Peters said the Obama administration releasing the details of the failed attempt to rescue the beheaded journalist James Foley was a "murderous act."

Peters said the released remind him of "Stalinist bureaucrats' and the "administration acted disgracefully" and purely for "political cover."

"I have got to address not only disgraceful, but murderous release of details of this raid," Peters said. "You just don't do it. The special operators are furious because the administration rolled them on the bin Laden raid."

OCEAN CITY — Just two days after having the charges against him dropped for his alleged role in a downtown Ocean City beating last August, an Odenton man was arrested again in the resort for first hitting a bar employee and then exposing himself on a crowded street while urinating during his subsequent arrest.

Last Tuesday, Wade Korvin, 21, of Odenton, had first-degree assault and other serious charges against him stemming from a vicious beating allegedly carried out by him and another man last August dropped in Worcester County Circuit Court when prosecutors deemed there were too many issues with the case to affect a successful prosecution. Less than 48 hours later, Korvin was arrested again on assault charges after allegedly punching a door man at Barn 34 for not letting him into the establishment because of his alleged level of intoxication.

In April, a Worcester County grand jury indicted Korvin and another man, Terrance Webster, 21, of Upper Marlboro, on multiple charges including first-degree assault for their alleged roles in the beating of another man in downtown Ocean City last August. Around 1:45 a.m. last Aug. 18, OCPD officers responded to the area of 17th Street and St. Louis Ave. for a reported assault. The officers located a male victim suffering from serious injuries.

I don’t care what the media says. I expect them to get it wrong and they often do. But I expect you as a veteran law enforcement commander—talking about law enforcement—to get it right.

Unfortunately, you blew it. After days of rioting and looting, last Thursday you were given command of all law enforcement operations in Ferguson by Governor Jay Nixon. St. Louis County PD was out, you were in. You played to the cameras, walked with the protestors and promised a kinder, gentler response. You were a media darling. And Thursday night things were better, much better.

But Friday, under significant pressure to do so, the Ferguson Police released the name of the officer involved in the shooting of Michael Brown. At the same time the Ferguson Police Chief released a video showing Brown committing a strong-arm robbery just 10 minutes before he was confronted by Officer Darren Wilson.

Many don’t like the timing of the release of the video. I don’t like that timing either. It should have been released sooner. It should have been released the moment FPD realized that Brown was the suspect.

Captain Johnson, your words during the day on Friday helped to fuel the anger that was still churning just below the surface. St. Louis County Police were told to remain uninvolved and that night the rioting and looting began again. For much too long it went on mostly unchecked. Retired St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch tweeted that your “hug-a-looter” policy had failed.

Boy did it.

And your words contributed to what happened Friday night and on into the wee hours of Saturday. According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, you said the following regarding the release of the video: “There was no need to release it,” Johnson said calling the reported theft and the killing entirely different events.

Well Captain, this veteran police officer feels the need to respond. What you said is, in common police vernacular—bullshit. The fact that Brown knew he had just committed a robbery before he was stopped by Officer Wilson speaks to Brown’s mindset. And Captain, the mindset of a person being stopped by a police officer means everything, and you know it.

Let’s consider a few examples:On February 15, 1978 Pensacola Police Officer David Lee conducted a vehicle check. He didn’t know what the sole occupant of the vehicle had recently done, but the occupant did. Who was he? Serial killer Ted Bundy. Bundy attempted to disarm Lee. Lee was able to retain his firearm and eventually took Bundy into custody.

On April 19, 1995 Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hangar stopped a vehicle for minor traffic violations. He didn’t know that 90 minutes earlier the traffic violator, Timothy McVeigh, killed 168 people with a truck bomb at the Murrah Federal Building. But McVeigh sure knew it, didn’t he? Fortunately, given his training and experience Hangar was able to take McVeigh into custody for carrying a concealed firearm. It was days later before it was determined that McVeigh was responsible for the bombing.

On May 31, 2003 then-rookie North Carolina police officer, Jeff Postell, arrested a man digging in a trash bin on a grocery store parking lot—an infraction that would rise to about the level of jaywalking. Postell didn’t know that he had just captured Eric Rudolph, the man whom years earlier had killed and injured numerous people with bombs and was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.

So now, let’s consider Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson’s stop of Michael Brown. Apparently Wilson didn’t know that Brown had just committed a strong-arm robbery. But Brown did! And that Captain, is huge.

Allegedly, Brown pushed Wilson and attempted to take Wilson’s gun. We’re also being told that Officer Wilson has facial injuries suffered during the attempt by Brown to disarm him. Let’s assume for a moment those alleged acts by Brown actually occurred. Would Brown have responded violently to an officer confronting him about jaywalking? Maybe, but probably not.

Is it more likely that he would attack an officer believing that he was about to be taken into custody for a felony strong-arm robbery? Absolutely.

Officer Wilson survived the encounter with Brown as did Lee, Hangar, and Postell. Michael Brown didn’t survive and it’s too soon to say if Officer Wilson’s use of deadly force was justified and legal. You and I both know that not all officers survive such confrontations. Officers die in incidents like this Captain Johnson, including a couple that I remember from your own organization:

On April 15, 1985 Missouri Trooper Jimmie Linegar was shot and killed by a white supremacist he and his partner stopped at a checkpoint; neither Trooper Linegar nor his partner were aware that the man they had stopped had just been indicted by a federal grand jury for involvement in a neo-Nazi group accused of murder. The suspect immediately exited the vehicle and opened fire on him with an automatic weapon.

Just a month before, Missouri Trooper James M. Froemsdorf was shot and killed—with his own gun—after making a traffic stop. When the Trooper made that stop he didn’t know that the driver was wanted on four warrants out of Texas—But again the suspect knew it.

So Captain Johnson, I guess the mindset and recently committed crimes of the suspects that murdered those Missouri Troopers didn’t mean anything. The stops by the Troopers, as you have said, are entirely different events right?

Bullshit.

Some information contained in this article came from the Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP).

The use of motorized boats, except those powered by electric motors, will again be prohibited at the Deal Island and Fairmount Wildlife Management Area (WMA) impoundments this hunting season, October 1 through March 31. DNR established the regulation last year to make these areas more appealing to birds, thus creating a better hunting area.

“Our hope was that these changes increase the number of days that ducks can utilize the impoundments on both areas free from routine disturbances,” said DNR Game Bird Section Leader Bill Harvey. “Our goal is to increase the overall number of ducks on these popular WMAs, which will lead to a higher quality waterfowl hunting experience.”

The boat motor restrictions and schedule of open waterfowl hunting days apply to the use of both WMAs within the managed impoundment areas only. Boat use and waterfowl hunting outside of the impoundments on these WMAs remains open.

Waterfowl hunters are reminded that hunting within these impoundments is by permit only on the opening days of each separate split of the duck season. After the opener, hunting is restricted to certain days of the week and/or certain holidays through the remainder of each split season. The schedule of open hunting days can be found in the 2014-2015 Guide to Hunting and Trapping. Those looking to hunt during one of the permit-only days must submit an application, located here, prior to September 15, 2014.

For more information, contact the Wellington WMA office at 410-543-8223.

The government has reached a $16.65 billion settlement with Bank of America over its role in the sale of mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the financial crisis, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

The deal calls for the bank, the second-largest in the U.S., to pay a $5 billion cash penalty and provide billions of dollars of relief to struggling homeowners. Bank of America said its cash payouts will total $9.65 billion.

The settlement is by far the largest deal the Justice Department has reached with a bank over the 2008 mortgage meltdown. In the last year, JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to a $13 billion settlement while Citigroup reached a separate $7 billion deal.

Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler announced today that multiple governmental entities and pension programs (Maryland and local governments) will share an estimated $75 million settlement secured by his Securities Division.

A new study suggests that 25 percent of troops in active duty, Guard and the Reserve use food banks to provide groceries and meals for themselves or their families.

The study sponsored by Feeding America, the nation's largest food bank network, is conducted once every four years and was based on data collected in 2012. It found that four percent of surveyed households who used a food bank contained a currently serving military member.

Based on those results, Feeding America officials estimated that 620,000 of their 46.5 million customers, or about 25 percent of the military population in 2012, used food banks.

"We find it disheartening," said Maura Daly, a spokesman for Feeding America. "We know from our food banks anecdotally that they have seen a dramatic increase in the number of military families that they are serving over the last several years. We weren't surprised that the need is there. We were a little surprised by how much need is there, and we believe that this is just the beginning of understanding this issue."

The study did not differentiate between Guard and Reserve or active duty members, creating no way to tell what portion of the four percent are inactive guard or Reservists, who may have vastly different monthly income and different assistance needs as compared to active duty members.

Facing criticism for going right from his Foley statement back to his golf game, the White House announced today that what appeared to be a bored manchild taking endless vacations and hanging out with his pals at taxpayer expense was actually part of a cunning scheme to defeat ISIS.

“Next week, President Obama intends to challenge the Caliph of ISIS to 19 holes at the Kaneohe Klipper Golf Course in Hawaii,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “His entire administration, all his experiences, have been leading up to this point. Every time conservatives ridiculed him, he was actually training for the day when he will personally defeat ISIL. At golf.”

The cop-hating radical lawyers of Eric Holder’s Justice Department are reportedly continuing to feed the passions of the lynch mob in Ferguson, Mo., that is screaming for the blood of the white cop who shot and killed a young black man earlier this month in what now almost certainly appears to be an act of self-defense.

A white police officer’s racism, an allegation for which there is no evidence whatsoever, supposedly caused the unfortunate incident. But the leftists who run the federal government need this. They want it badly. A police officer has to be sacrificed to appease Democrats’ political base and to help fend off an increasingly likely Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate in November.

Federal civil rights charges may be in the works against Darren Wilson, the white police officer who shot Michael Brown after an intense physical altercation that left Wilson with severe head injuries.

The feds may simply ignore local authorities and go forward with a case against Wilson, says Hans von Spakovsky, who worked in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under President George W. Bush. He is currently a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation and is co-author of the recently published Obama’s Enforcer: Eric Holder’s Justice Department.

Robert Wolf bundled over a million dollars for Obama, got a WH appointment, and is cashing in on his connections

As economists and policy wonks debate the merits of U.S. export financing, critics of one controversial program are warning of more subtle consequences exemplified, they say, by one of the president’s golfing buddies.

Robert Wolf joined the president on the links this month in Martha’s Vineyard, the latest of his frequent outings with the president. The foursome also included private equity financier Glenn Hutchins and Cyrus Walker, cousin of White House adviser Valerie Jarrett.

Wolf’s deep ties to the president are integral to his business model. He is part of a rising industry of “political intelligence” professionals who use relationships with Washington power brokers to advance public policy beneficial to their clients.

Wolf is the founder and chief executive of 32 Advisors, which describes itself as “the pre-eminent cross-border business advisory firm servicing domestic and international corporations, public entities, governments, financial services firms, and high growth businesses.”

Yesterdays fire on N. Division St. was not your ordinary run of the mill fire. Arriving firefighters found a rapidly advancing fire in a very large multiple occupancy building. The structure is estimated to be 100 years old or more. For 4 hours Volunteer and Career firefighters from Salisbury and its neighboring companies worked together in extreme heat and humidity to extinguish this fire and save as much property as possible.

As the incident commander I witnessed nothing but complete cooperation and teamwork from every individual involved. I would like to thank the men and women from Salisbury, Delmar, Hebron, Fruitland, Parsonsburg, Mardela and Allen for their contributions yesterday. No department of our size could handle an incident of this size without Teamwork and assistance from Mutual Aid companies.Fires that occur Monday through Friday 7-5 present a manpower shortage to fire departments across the country. People have to work and support their families. While units are busy handling the incident at hand there are fill in companies manning the stations. The next emergency doesn't wait until your finished with the first emergency. You have to be prepared if those additional calls come in.

At the end of the day the building was saved and no citizens were injured or killed. The fire department accomplished its mission to protect lives and property.

David Paulin, an Austin, TX-based freelance journalist, covered Hugo Chavez's rise to power while based in Caracas as a foreign correspondent. He also reported from the Caribbean while based in Kingston, Jamaica.

It had seemed to the four clean-cut college freshman that night like a typical McDonald’s: spanking clean, well-lighted, and safe. It was in a good neighborhood too, right next to Texas A&M University in College Station – a campus known for its friendly atmosphere and official down-home greeting: “howdy”

Out on a double date, the two couples pulled into the parking lot of so-called “University McDonald’s” shortly after 2 a.m. that Sunday – and beheld a scene unlike anything portrayed in all those wholesome McDonald’s television commercials. Before them, hundreds of young black males were loitering about, some without shirts.

Other local residents — the more cynical and world-weary, both whitesand most blacks — would have taken one look at the crowd and driven off, dismissing many of the young and posturing black males as thugs. But not them: innocent white kids from the suburbs. They presumed this was post-racial America — and that they were in an easy-going college town.

In physics, a unified field theory is an attempt to explain with a single hypothesis the behavior of several fields. Its political corollary is the Cupcake Postulate, which explains everything , from Missouri to Iraq, concerning Americans’ comprehensive withdrawal of confidence from government at all levels and all areas of activity.

Washington’s response to the menace of school bake sales illustrates progressivism’s ratchet: The federal government subsidizes school lunches, so it must control the lunches’ contents, which validates regulation of what it calls “competitive foods,” such as vending machine snacks. Hence the need to close the bake sale loophole, through which sugary cupcakes might sneak: Foods sold at fundraising bake sales must, with some exceptions, conform to federal standards.

What has this to do with police, from Ferguson, Mo., to your home town, toting marksman rifles, fighting knives, grenade launchers and other combat gear? Swollen government has a shriveled brain: By printing and borrowing money, government avoids thinking about its proper scope and actual competence. So it smears mine-resistant armored vehicles and other military marvels across 435 congressional districts because it can .

And instead of making immigration policy serve the nation’s values and workforce needs, government, egged on by conservatives, aspires to emulate East Germany along the Rio Grande, spending scores of billions to militarize a border bristling with hardware bought with previous scores of billions. Much of this is justified by the United States’ longest losing “war,” the one on drugs. Is it, however, necessary for NASA to have its own SWAT team?

Since the shooting of Michael Brown by a white policeman and the ensuing riots and looting in Ferguson, MO, Americans have been told, yet again, that there is an epidemic of crime against black people in this country. But is there really a race war, and if so, which side is actually waging it? See Bill Whittle’s video and transcript below:

TRANSCRIPT:

RACE RIOTS IN FURGUSON

Hi everybody. I’m Bill Whittle and this is the Firewall.

Before we get into the bigger picture – of which the ongoing rioting in Furguson, Missouri is merely a symptom – let’s just be crystal clear about something.

IF it turns out that a police officer shot Michael Brown as he was standing still, his hands in the air, as his defenders claim, then that police officer needs to be charged with murder, and he needs to go to jail for the rest of his life.

But that doesn’t seem like what happened at all. This story is still unfolding and new details are being revealed every day. I’m not going to speculate on how Michael Brown’s life actually came to an end. But I am going to talk about what happened before and after.

Michael Brown has been repeatedly referred to in the media as a “gentle giant,” and an “unarmed black teen.”

Here’s surveillance video of the gentle giant, taken a short time before the shooting, stealing a handful of cigars and then gently strong arming the store owner out of his way.

So why is it that the Attorney General, appointed by the President of the United States of America, put intense political pressure on the Ferguson Police Department to suppress this standard, ordinary surveillance video – a video, by the way, that caused the destruction of this man’s store and left him fearing for his life. Well, we’ll get to that in a moment.

Following a business complaint, the city may be looking to relocate – but not eliminate – any number of Boardwalk street performers, including the now-infamous pole dancer.

City Council requested this week that the Ocean City Police Department look into if, and how, the city is still able to enforce one of the few legal controls it still has left over street performers – the right to prevent the obstruction of public ways, and to guarantee reasonable access to private property.

Attorney Joe Moore asked the council for action on behalf of his clients, who own the Mug and Mallet restaurant in the Plim Plaza, immediately to the south of the Second Street location where the Pole Doll – the nom-de-guerre of dancer Chelsea Plymale – typically sets up.

“If you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I can’t stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll sue me and take away my badge. Don’t scream at me that you pay my salary, and don’t even think of aggressively walking towards me. Most field stops are complete in minutes. How difficult is it to cooperate for that long?” —Sunil Dutta, an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department for 17 years

Life in the American police state is an endless series of don’ts delivered at the end of a loaded gun: don’t talk back to police officers, don’t even think about defending yourself against a SWAT team raid (of which there are 80,000 every year), don’t run when a cop is nearby lest you be mistaken for a fleeing criminal, don’t carry a cane lest it be mistaken for a gun, don’t expect privacy in public, don’t let your kids walk to the playground alone, don’t engage in nonviolent protest near where a government official might pass, don’t try to grow vegetables in your front yard, don’t play music for tips in a metro station, don’t feed whales, and on and on.

For those who resist, who dare to act independently, think for themselves, march to the beat of a different drummer, the consequences are invariably a one-way trip to the local jail or death.

In her most recent autobiography, Hillary Clinton misled the public about her role in helping to secure the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi, the scene of a 9/11 attack less than two years ago where Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were murdered, documents a soon-to-be released book.

Further, she may have deceived lawmakers during her public testimony probing the attacks.

While national news media continue to focus on race in Ferguson, Missouri, where a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, they apparently don’t think a similar case in Utah with the races reversed is that newsworthy.

Police in Salt Lake City are continuing their probe into an Aug. 11 shooting outside a 7-Eleven convenience store, when a black police officer, whom local media are referring to as “not white,” shot and killed 20-year-old Dillon Taylor, who was unarmed at the time, according to his supporters.

Police Chief Chris Burbank said the entire incident was captured on the body camera of the officer who shot Taylor.

“You will see on camera … the actions of everyone involved, including up to the point where our officer utilizes deadly force and his response thereafter,” Burbank told reporters.

SALISBURY — Discussion on the potential for bed and breakfasts in Salisbury’s Newtown Historic District as well as the status of non-conforming properties in that neighborhood caused some sparks to fly between the Mayor and City Council Monday.

Salisbury is looking for ways to improve Newtown and cater to the requests of residents. This could include allowing bed and breakfasts, bringing non-conforming properties into conformity or both. However, Mayor Jim Ireton and Councilwoman Laura Mitchell clashed over what, if anything, needs to be done regarding non-conforming properties in the area.

Ireton proposed the idea of amortization over 10 years that would allow non-conforming properties, generally those housing multiple families within a relatively small space, to return to single-family or other allowed uses. Amortization has received some criticism with opponents arguing that it unfairly targets minorities and that it walks the line of being unconstitutional.

Those who admit they don’t know exactly what happened in Ferguson seem to be in the minority.

Those of us who admit that we were not there, and do not know what happened when Michael Brown was shot by a policeman in Ferguson, Mo., seem to be in the minority.

We all know what has happened since then — and it has been a complete disgrace by politicians, the media, and mobs of rioters and looters. Despite all the people who act as if they know exactly what happened, nevertheless, when the full facts come out, that can change everything.

This is why we have courts of law, instead of relying on the media or mobs. But politics is undermining law.

On the eve of a grand jury’s being convened to go through the facts and decide whether there should be a prosecution of the policeman in this case, Governor Jay Nixon of Missouri has gone on television to say that there should be a “vigorous prosecution.”

There was a time when elected officials avoided commenting on pending legal processes, so as not to bias those processes. But Governor Nixon apparently has no fear of poisoning the jury pool.

The only alternative explanation is that this is exactly what he intends to do. It is a disgrace either way.

On July 15 the Congressional Budget Office rolled out updated projections that show a precipitous decline in Social Security’s solvency. The program’s 75-year deficit has nearly quadrupled since 2008, and the trust fund’s exhaustion date has moved forward by nearly 20 years. Remarkably, the response by progressives is to expand Social Security’s benefits while leaving its multi-trillion-dollar unfunded obligations largely unaddressed.

In 2008 CBO forecast that Social Security faced a 75-year funding shortfall of 1.06% of payroll, which implied that a mere 1.06 percentage point increase in the payroll tax—to 13.46% from the current 12.4%—would keep the system solvent for 75 years. This seemingly minor shortfall caused many on the left—who had fought tooth-and-nail against President Bush’s 2005 efforts to fix Social Security—to mock the very need for reform.

The program’s deficits were small and distant, the argument then went, the trust fund was projected to remain solvent until 2049, and CBO said its estimates were uncertain, which progressives took to mean that insolvency might never happen at all.

It was "silly" and "juvenile" for the administration of President Barack Obama to reveal the United States failed in an effort to rescue American journalist James Foley, who was beheaded by ISIS terrorists, said Michael Scheuer, a former CIA agent who for 10 years led the agency's unit hunting Osama bin Laden.

Scheuer told "Fox & Friends" it was also unwise for the White House to "advertise a defeat" or alert the terrorists that the U.S. knew "where they're holding their prisoners, or we think they know where they're holding their prisoners."

Newspapers are finding their business increasingly challenged as print advertising sales – their traditional revenue powerhouse – decline and readers’ attention shifts to the screen.

Revenues from print ads have dropped 8 per cent a year for the past three years, according to Ken Doctor, analyst at Outsell. Digital advertising on papers’ websites is picking up but brings in lower revenue than print.

That has left many companies turning to consolidation to trim overhead costs and expand their reach to offer a bigger audience to potential advertisers. Total deal value rose to $259m in the quarter from $125m a year ago.

Tribune Publishing’s Baltimore Sun Media Group and Florida-based Halifax Media Group were among the companies that bought up smaller regional newspapers during the quarter as they looked to widen their footprints.

“At this point there’s likely not going to be a significant uptick in traditional print publishing advertising dollars,” said Bart Spiegel, partner at PwC’s entertainment, media and communications practice. “You need to look at the cost structure of the business. You need scale and to take advantage of synergies to make sure you’re really driving profitability.”

“You need to look at the cost structure of the business. You need scale and to take advantage of synergies to make sure you’re really driving profitability”.

Whenever you hear the word “synergy,” think “two drunks holding each other up.”

Some foster children were placed in the care of relatives with a history of alleged abuse or neglect because Maryland's social services agency did not properly monitor local agencies, according to a new audit.

State auditors found that 16 children, ranging in age from 2 months to nearly 5 years old, were put in the care of relatives despite "credible evidence of abuse or neglect" by them before or during the placements. The Office of Legislative Audits, which released the report this week, reviewed records from July 2010 to January 2013.

"We need to do better. The bottom line is, these placements need to be safe," said Melissa Rock, child welfare director for Advocates for Children and Youth, a nonprofit advocacy group. "When a child is abused or neglected in a DHR placement — be it a group home, a foster home, a kinship care home — we need accountability and there needs to be more public awareness to help hold everyone accountable."

Some say that the once-formidable army of Washington lobbyists is dramatically shrinking in an era of a “do-nothing Congress” that is passing little legislation of real substance.

The number of active lobbyists peaked at 14,837 in 2007, in the twilight of President George W. Bush’s administration, and has steadily declined in virtually every economic, industry and social policy sector, according to a study by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). Nearly 1,800 lobbyists stopped reporting their activities with Congress or the federal government between 2012 and 2013.

Hundreds of sexual attacks on college campuses across the country are reported every year — but now men are coming forward to claim they are the victims of false accusations, The Washington Post reported.

The White House is attempting to wipe out the wave of sex attacks with a national campaign to increase sexual assault awareness and put pressure on colleges and universities to take action against students accused of rape or "forcible sex offenses."

But the accused are now claiming that internal tribunals have a lower standard of proof for determining whether an offense occurred compared to the legal requirements for a conviction of a sex crime, the Post said.

The alleged attackers are also angry that accounts end up circulating on campuses and the Internet alleging that they are rapists or committed sexual assault on another student.

There are many things you can do to make sure you don’t go get in trouble with the law for another go around, but a surefire way to hop right into that hot water again? By boosting a ride and driving it to a meeting with a probation officer.

In this case, “ride” means an electric shopping cart pilfered from an Albuquerque Walmart, court documents say, according to KOAT News (warning: link has video that auto plays).

And when his probation officer asked the 18-year-old where he got his new wheels, to which he allegedly replied that he “took it from the Walmart” in the area.

SALISBURY — Superintendent of Schools Dr. John Fredericksen and the Wicomico County Board of Education finalized school leadership teams for the 2014-2015 school year this week.

The board promoted Dr. Mark Bowen to elementary assistant principal at Delmar Elementary School effective immediately. Bowen had served since 2012 as the Criminal Justice instructor in the Parkside High School Department of Career & Technology Education.

A number of schools and one center also recently finalized their leadership teams.

Lisa M. Forbush is an assistant principal for James M. Bennett High, replacing Kimberly Pinhey, who is now principal of Parkside High. Forbush had served as assistant principal at North Salisbury Elementary and, prior to that, at Fruitland Primary.

CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Four firefighters were injured — two seriously — when a fire truck's ladder got too close to a power line after they helped college students take part in an ice bucket challenge, police said Thursday.

The firefighters had just finished dousing cold water on the Campbellsville University marching band and were lowering the ladder when they were shocked by electricity. Two firefighters were in the bucket and two were on the main part of the truck.

The two in the bucket were at a hospital burn unit. One was in critical condition and the other was stable, Campbellsville Police Chief Tim Hazlette said. The other firefighters were treated and released.

Compared to a lifetime (or at least a few years) spent with your spouse, the one day you spend actually getting married is but a blip on a very long timeline. But the results of a new study seems to indicate that there is some sort of link between the size of your wedding’s guest list and the quality of the marriage that ensues. Of course, that data also appears to show that most marriages are not truly happy.

Among the various findings of the study are some curious numbers about the number of people attending a couple’s wedding and the quality of their marriage.

The couples in the study who said “I do” before a crowd of at least 150 people had high-quality marriages, according to the researchers. On the other end of the scale, only 31% of couples with relatively cozy weddings of 50 or fewer guests had high-quality marriages. For the group in the middle of those two extremes, the stats weren’t much better, with just 37% having high-quality marriages.

Likewise, only 28% of couples who eschewed formal weddings entirely fit into the the high-quality category, compared to 41% of those who went the formal wedding route.

The Obama administration promises to change the way travelers get themselves off the government's no-fly list. But so far, officials are mum on exactly what the changes will be. A judge recently ruled there's no meaningful way to to challenge the no-fly designation. That makes current rules unconstitutional. The Justice Department promises to update the process within six months. The list contains around 48,000 names.

A tax that Congress enacted to help pay for Obamacare is not performing as well as hoped. The Treasury Inspector General's audit says the tax on medical devices is falling behind on its revenue target because thousands of companies simply aren't paying the tax. The tax is on the sale of medical devices used mostly by doctors and hospitals. It took effect in January 2013. For the first six months of 2013, the IRS predicted it would collect $1.2 billion, but it only collected $913 million from the tax.

Target Corp. slashed its profit forecast for the year as the retailer struggles with the aftershocks of a massive data breach and a botched expansion into Canada.

The Minneapolis company said reverberations from the breach, in which hackers made off with credit and debit card data from customers, cost it $148 million in its second fiscal quarter, which ended Aug. 2.

Its net income also plunged nearly 62% to $234 million, or 37 cents a share. That's compared with $611 million, or 95 cents a share, a year earlier.

Chief Executive Brian Cornell, who took the helm at the nation's third-largest retailer this month, said Target needed "a sense of urgency."